After three and a half years of studies, I have finally graduated. I have always been thinking that I will be earning lots of money after graduation, well before that happens I have lots of debt to cover. Today, i received the bank’s repayment letter asking when am I going to start off the debts I have with them.

I have 2 loans, the NUS study loan

Need more financing? Study Loan provides you extra funds while you are studying.

and DBS tuition fee loan

A government-funded education loan that is offered by the local institutions and administered by DBS Bank to Singaporeans, Singapore Permanent Residents and Foreign students studying in the respective local institutions^#.

For those who took up NUS study loan, I just like to highlight that the NUS study load is in fact Interest Free! and it has a repayment period of 5 years.Oh and the minimum payment is S$100.00 per month

there are 2 types of study loan A & B – A is interest free while B is interest bearing

Then comes the expensive one, the DBS tuition fee loan – the interest is charge monthly and the interest is based on the prime rates of the 3 local bank. DBS, UOB and OCBC. Today I made a call to the DBS loan office and the prime rate is currently at 4.75% per annual. *note: the prime rates are revise every quarterly.

Thus you have to do your own calculation for the monthly interest

The plan is simple for me, I am going to focus payment on the DBS tuition fee loan while paying only the minimum requirement for NUS study loan. This is to quicken the time to repay the loan to DBS because I do not wish to have the interest compounded otherwise it would be a bomb.

and I was actually dreaming big money after graduation, :p any way a quick tip for students going into NUS, SMU or NTU. The plan is to take up 80% of DBS 1uition fee loan and 20% NUS study loan at the start of your academic journey. Simply because study loan is interest free

despite all the complains I have for my debt, I would have to say a fair statement that I do appreciate the subsidies that Singapore Government provide because with it my loan could be worst…

my $0.02 on study loan.

^#Local institutions refer to Singapore Polytechnic, Nanyang Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Temasek Polytechnic, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University.